


Galatea

by Spinifex



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Alien Planet, Alien Technology, Angst, Angsty angst lite, CW: Description of Physical Pain and Injury, CW: Medical use of drugs, Dead Alien Civilization, F/F, Fluffy smut lite, Glowy Grass Planet, La Sirena, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multichaptered, Mystery, Raffi and Seven Being Fluffy, Romance, Romulans, The Borg, Vashti - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27431968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spinifex/pseuds/Spinifex
Summary: There was a beacon. It had no language. It seemed to be a cry for help.AN: True to form, this story is edited while in progress. I like to keep things spicy.
Relationships: Raffi Musiker & Cristóbal Rios, Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 72
Kudos: 43





	1. The Beacon

There was a beacon. It had no language. It seemed to be a cry for help.

The conversation paused with Rios. He was leaning back on his bench beside the mess table. The rest were gathered around him. He crossed his arms over his chest. 

“- so then we do it,” the Captain said. “We’ll set a course and check it out.”

*

 _La Sirena_ touched down in still, blue darkness. The crew stepped out of the airlock, in pairs or one-by-one. Their boots crunched on a field of grass with seed heads that glittered weakly against the dark. Raffi looked up at a sky that was hung with rolling cloud banks. They crackled with an electrical storm that wouldn’t spill a drop of rain. 

Seven stepped up beside her and bent to run her fingers over the knee-high seed-heads. Her glove shook free glowing particles that danced away like embers to the sky. 

“Bioluminescence,” Raffi said, as the Ex-Borg straightened up again. 

Seven smiled, her teeth were white behind her faceplate. Her voice was warm and soft in Raffi’s ears as her helmet’s speakers transmitted Seven’s reply. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Seven of Nine.

The Ex-Borg dusted sparks of pollen off her glove-clad fingers and nudged her arm at Raffi’s side. 

“Hey, are you still up for dinner tonight?” she asked, referring to the date that they’d arranged in Seven’s quarters. They both knew that eating dinner was one of the very last activities on their minds. But their relationship was still brand-new, and it was amusing to make-believe that they would not be doing anything else.

Raffi leaned against her briefly, her movement disturbed more sparks of pollen into a glittering haze. The storm crackled above them. The lightning lit up muddy billows of purple and brown as the heavy clouds gave low-pitched growls of thunder. 

“Like I’d wanna be anywhere else,” Raffi promised, and wished for nothing more than to reach across and touch her hand to Seven’s face. Their EVA suits permitted none of that. Seven caught Raffi’s gloved fingers in her own and squeezed them gently. The touch was a dull pressure, close to nothingness. Raffi’s pulse leapt at it anyway.

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Seven quietly. She stepped past Raffi and started following their other crew members, who’d wandered off towards a distant outcropping of tall and grey-black rocks. Rios was leading, with Elnor and Soji following behind. Jean-Luc and Agnes were waiting on _La Sirena_. Someone had to keep the lights on back at home.

Seven looked back over her shoulder, and Raffi could swear that she winked. 

Raffi bit her lip and sauntered after them. She fixed her eyes on Seven’s back. She murmured underneath her breath, across the private communication channel that they’d set up between them. She imagined her own voice in Seven’s ear. She was thrilled by what it meant.

“Tonight.”

*

The crew’s search for the beacon went to a spire that loomed up through the storm clouds, out of nowhere. Stumbling into its vicinity was a shock. In one moment they were walking through the glowing grass stalks, with nothing but a plain before them, expansive and silent. In the next moment, there it was: the outline huge and hulking. Its dull exterior seemed to swallow the light from the sparkling seed heads. It was as though the structure was trying to wrap itself in darkness, its grey walls working to fade back into the night. 

Everybody stared at it. Raffi could see Rios blinking hard in disbelief. Cris took a slow step back, and stepped forwards again, his eyes fixed on the improbable building. He seemed to shimmer as his body moved past a particular point, though Raffi could see nothing remarkable about the air. 

Seven turned to look back at Rios, and then beyond him, her eyes on the direction from which they came. Raffi looked out at the open field with her. She saw only miles of waving, glittering grass and the ever-present storm clouds sparking overhead. The Ex-Borg reached out to the place where Rios was standing and waved her arm up and down through the air. 

It shimmered. 

The extremity of her arm seemed to blur away, but it was definitely still there. Raffi could still see it if she concentrated. 

“Huh,” said Rios, watching Seven. Soji and Elnor shared a nervous glance.

Seven turned back to the others, her footsteps crunching over the pickups from their suit’s microphones.

“Some sort of cloaking field,” she said. She nodded up at the clouds swirling around the distant upper reaches of the building, sparking their lightning against the light-eating surface with chaotic intensity. Just looking at the transfer of energy to the spire made the hairs on the back of Raffi’s neck rise. 

“The power for the field could be generated by the storm,” said Seven. She was looking up at the storm clouds harassing the building. The pale glow of her helmet lights painted the soft curve of Seven’s cheek, and traced the grey handprint of metal beside her jaw. 

Rios glanced down at his tricorder, and set his gaze upon the spire again. “No guesses what that cloak’s hiding,” he said. He jerked his chin towards the structure and eyed it warily. “Beacon’s that-a-way.”

Raffi held out her arm in humourous invitation as Rios walked around her, taking point on their landing party once again. 

“After you, Captain,” she said.

*

There was a gap in the surface of the spire that might have been an entryway. Either that, or the erosive force of time had cracked a passage through what ought to be a solid wall. They heard the click and the grind of some unknown mechanism activating, and the walls started glowing with a feeble light.

Raffi squeezed further indoors and came to stand by Rios. She could see consoles and wires and empty storage containers. A pillowed shroud of dust covered everything. The absence of footprints was obvious.

“Why do I get the feeling that this place has been abandoned?” Raffi said.

Cris nodded and shrugged. His face was a map of shadows in the gloom. 

“Lights are on but no-one’s home. Perhaps they’ve just stepped out to lunch.”

Stepping close to a flickering console, Seven scoffed. “A very long one,” she said. Her tone was dry. Raffi smiled at it, but hid her face so that no one else would see. She knew that Seven had caught it, and that was enough. 

Raffi’s footsteps were muted on the dusty floor. Her brain kept trying to call it concrete, even though it probably wasn’t. There was nothing in this room that she could identify. Not with a respectable level of confidence. The flickering console that Seven was closest to looked like it might be used to control something, but what exactly, Raffi had no clue. The technology was obviously advanced, and probably powerful, but entirely alien to anything Raffi knew.

Rios beckoned Soji and Elnor further into the room with a tilt of his head and a flick of his hand. 

“Soji you’re our anthropological genius right? And Elnor, you're as close to a local of this sector as we’re gonna get.” Both crew members smiled under their Captain’s recognition as he continued, “Either of you recognise any of what we’re looking at here?” he said.

Raffi watched the young synth look around at the room’s enigmatic architecture. Her slender form was near-comically dwarfed by the EVA suit she was wearing. Raffi had early misgivings about Soji when she first met her. But after listening to her story and living in close quarters with her, the X.O. had grown fond of the young woman over time. 

Soji started speaking.

“I can’t access anything in the memories that Bruce programmed for me that matches any of-” she gestured widely at the room. The arc of her arm covered the weakly glowing walls and the strange, central console. It was pulsing and flickering with a nervous blue light. “-this,” she finished. 

Elnor stood beside her. His wide-legged warrior’s stance looked sturdy and braced beside Soji’s uncertain one. 

He considered the distant ceiling like Soji had. Then cast his gaze on the walls and then back to the console. 

“Me neither,” he said. Then, “Well, not Soji’s memories, of course. But the Vashtin Romulans have only been in this sector for thirty years or so. I have never heard any of my people tell tales of this place, nor of its technology.”

Through the glass plate of his helmet, the Romulan’s features turned pensive. 

“I do know there’s a Borg transwarp conduit near this area of space, though. That might be why my people have never come here. The risk of assimilation would be too dangerous. Perhaps Seven of Nine-?”

He trailed off, his dark eyes regarding the quiet woman with the standard level of awe that he seemed to reserve for her. Raffi knew from conversations with Seven that she found Elnor’s reverence bemusing. On first encountering Seven however, Raffi would have readily agreed with him. The Ex-Borg was like no-one Raffi had encountered. She had an intoxicating presence that effortlessly captured Raffi’s attention in a way that had quickly transformed into mutual attraction. Their days spent talking and laughing, and their nights spent not eating dinner were a testament to that. 

Seven caught Raffi’s eye. Her lips twitched into a suppressed but helpless smile as her gaze slipped past Raffi and over their surroundings. Raffi’s cheeks warmed and she smiled privately, grateful for the curve of her faceplate as a surface to hide behind. It was a pleasant thrill to understand that she inspired the same surge of happiness in Seven’s mood as the Ex-Borg did to hers. Their dinner date this evening seemed like it was ages away. 

“My recognition of this technology gained from the Collective is absent,-” Seven paused. 

Raffi could see her brow furrow in the shadows behind her faceplate. The transmission of Seven’s voice via the speakers in Raffi’s helmet was still warm and strangely intimate. But Raffi could also detect a note of uncertainty in Seven’s tone. Raffi supposed that it was not often that she was left uninformed by her memories from her time in the Borg Collective. That lack of knowledge was obviously confusing her.

“- It is unsettling,” Seven continued. She stalked around the room’s flickering central console. Her blue eyes were lit by the reflections from her faceplate’s glass. The weak light gleamed against the tarnished metal implant over the Ex-Borg’s left eyebrow. 

“A civilisation with this level of technological expertise would be a prime target for my- for the Borg,” Seven said, correcting herself. 

Raffi’s skin prickled as she wondered what it was about this place that was making Seven so distracted. Seven had confessed to Raffi that she tried not to think too much about her time in the Borg Collective.

“We - they would want to add this culture’s perfection to their own.”

“Nothing at all?” Raffi asked. 

“Nothing,” Seven agreed. “It is as though the Borg never knew of their existence.” 

Rios nodded thoughtfully and strode over to the central console. He scanned it with his tricorder, Raffi could see that he was trying to find out more about the beacon they were following from the device. She went over to the console and stood beside him. 

“Want to see if I can fire this thing up and coax some answers out of it?” Raffi asked. 

Cris shrugged his assent, evidently unable to get anything further from his tricorder. “Work your magic, Raf,” he said, and stepped aside to give her some room to manoeuvre. 

Raffi hesitated for a moment as she held her hand above the console. She judged, quickly, whether or not the panels might object to someone interfering with them. Particularly because the caking of dirt indicated that the panels had not been disturbed in a very long time. The X.O. carefully brought her fingers down, until the pads of her protective gloves rested on the flickering console. 

Raffi tapped the surface, lightly.

The dead display in front of her dragged itself to life. First one readout, then another. The outputs overlaid one-another in a jumble of foreign script. Whether it was machine code or a traditional language, it was impossible to know. Raffi squinted at the screen, humming with curiosity. Her expression was made more out of annoyance than any difficulty to see. 

“I think I’m gonna need the computer’s help on this,” Raffi said. It was rare that she needed an AI’s help to figure out anything. She was referring to _La Sirena_ ’s supercomputer. Its artificial intelligence was powerful enough to help navigate their starship and operate five different emergency holograms at once. 

She looked over her shoulder to talk to Seven. “Hey, do you have a data modulator in your pack?”

Seven dropped down to one knee and swung a small container of away team provisions off her back. Her shoulders moved jerkily as she dug around in one of the pockets. After a few seconds she stood up with a sigh, shaking her leg out in a way that Raffi took to mean that the Ex-Borg’s joints were voicing their protest. 

“Feeling a little old there Seven?” said Raffi, grinning as Seven glared and pushed the modulator into the X.O.’s open palm. 

“If anyone’s old here, it’s you.” Seven said. She nudged Raffi’s hip with hers and then followed her back to the central console. 

Cris gave a groan at his bantering friends. “Would you two get to work and stop flirting already?”

Seven flicked her glare from Raffi to Rios, though he claimed her attempts to intimidate him were no longer very effective. Seven had smirked the last time Raffi had asked her about it. 

*

They’d been lying in bed after another well-spent evening of not consuming dinner. Their clothes in a mess on the floor, and the ones that they hadn’t bothered to remove were crushed beyond intervention. Irritating Rios was something that Seven found entertaining and did it anyway, Seven told her, laughing as she reached for her bedside table to pour them both more liqueur. Raffi approved of her behaviour. She said so, plainly, tipping the tumbler Seven had handed her to her lips and swallowing deeply. Not eating dinner was very thirsty work. It paid to stay hydrated. Though this was probably not quite what the doctors all meant. 

Then Seven had climbed on top of Raffi and pulled her shirt off with a grin. She’d leaned over on her forearms, her bright hair trailing down her shoulders, and asked the X.O. if she approved of that move too. 

‘Oh, fuck, yes,” had been Raffi’s delighted answer.

*

“Right,” said Raffi, forcefully turning her full attention to the console. “So, Seven, if you could place the modulator just here? Then I’ll-”

A thunderclap cracked outside the building. The sound was loud enough to reverberate through the room, the unbridled energy of it beating the air in its vicinity into grumbling submission. The glow from the walls surged brightly and flickered back to dimness again. The whole crew flinched, waiting. Soji stumbled into Elnor, and then reached out to steady herself on one of the consoles with her open palm. 

The wall lights surged. The console zapped her.

“Ah!” 

Soji drew her hand back, cursing fluently as she shook pain out from her fingers. At the same moment, Seven was reaching forwards and placing the data modulator on the console next to Raffi. She’d flinched at the thunderclap with the rest of the crew, but hadn’t seen Soji getting struck by the feedback from the other console. 

Raffi was not entirely sure what happened next. All of it just seemed to move so fast. The wall lights surged, making the room glow painfully bright. There was a pulse of energy from somewhere which felt like a cross between a stun baton and a forcefield. It pushed Raffi violently away from the console and flung her against the opposite wall. She heard the thuds and the gasps through her suit’s helmet speakers as the rest of the crew quickly joined her. She heard the slide of kevlar and cloth and their groans as they hit the wall like rag dolls and tumbled to the floor.

There was a horrible, choking sound. 

Raffi shook her head in confusion and cleared her throat. In her groggy state, it took a moment to realise that the noise wasn’t hers. She forced her eyes open against the brilliant light to see Seven still somehow standing at the console. 

Her back was arched. Her head was back, her faceplate angled towards the ceiling. Her hand was firmly pressed against the console, fingers curled around the data modulator like she had no ability to tear them away. Her whole body was shaking as she made that stomach-churning noise. 

Raffi opened her mouth to shout. She tried to push herself to her feet and run to Seven. To try and help her. Anything to get her away from the thing that was hurting her.

The walls pulsed again. Bright and brilliant. This time, even brighter than before. Raffi cried out, bringing her arms up to shield her eyes, as mercifully, she saw Seven crumple to the floor. The data modulator clattered to the ground beside her. At least she wasn’t making that sound anymore. 

Raffi held that spark of hope inside her chest as she blacked out.

*

When the crew returned to consciousness again, hours or minutes later, Seven was gone.


	2. The Departure

*

“Nobody touch those consoles,” Raffi said. 

Her throat felt like sandpaper as she squeezed the words out on ragged breaths. Her entire body ached and she felt bruised and strained and groggy. Her shoulders were tender, from where she’d taken the impact when she was flung to the wall. She wasn’t sure if she’d suffered a concussion. The helmet on the EVA suit she was wearing would have protected her. At least it would have cushioned her head while she’d been flying about. She’d ask the EMH on  _ La Sirena _ . It couldn’t hurt to check.

She pulled herself across the floor in a half-crouched stumble that fell to a crawl. She stopped at the prints in the dust where she and Seven had been standing. The central console was dark again and the walls had returned to their original feeble glow. Raffi sat back on her haunches and picked up the data modulator from where it had fallen. There were smudges and streaks in the dust where Seven had been. Her thoughts shied away from calling what she’d witnessed a ‘body’. It was far too soon to think about it like that. Raffi had to at least try and find her and get her back first, assuming she’d been taken. 

The inside of Raffi’s skull felt like cotton. Her brain was moving too slowly to process anything, let alone think of what to do with their crewmember so mysteriously gone. Raffi wondered if perhaps she had hit her head after all. 

Behind her, her suit’s pickups were transmitting the sounds of the others moving. There were soft and ginger noises of shuffling and scraping as Rios cursed and rolled to his feet. 

“Fuck. Are we okay?” he said, limping and then rubbing at a cramp in his leg. 

Raffi forced herself to speak, as clearly as possible through the haze in her head. The data modulator was a lump in her hand.

“Seven’s missing.”

Shortly after, she heard Elnor’s voice in her helmet, tight with worry. 

“Soji is breathing but she will not wake,” he said. 

The Captain’s boots shuffled. Her eyes latched onto the motion, scraping through the dust.

“Raff, you okay?” Rios said.

Raffi slid the data modulator into her pocket and tried to stand. She aborted the movement quickly when she felt a rush of nausea and tasted bile. 

“Fuzzy. Not great. Maybe concussion. Time delayed.”

She felt the gentle pressure of Rios’s hand upon her shoulder, coaxing her to sit and stay, “Easy there Raff.” 

She heard Cris tap his comm badge. 

“Rios to  _ La Sirena.  _ Come in, Agnes. Over.”

The scientist’s voice, high and uncertain, chirruped back through Raffi’s helmet speakers. 

“Yeah, this is Agnes? I mean, go ahead Captain. Over. Roger. No wait, over-oh whatever, I’m listening.”

Rios waited for her to stop talking. The only outward sign of his impatience was the way he moved his weight from foot to foot. Raffi watched him, though her head was pounding. It had heavy deadness that was threatening sleep. 

Rios shook her. It ached.

“Hey Raff, don’t go anywhere. I need you lucid,” then probably to Agnes, “we’ve got two crew down and one person missing. Something went haywire with the console we were looking at and we got thrown around the room a bit. We’re gonna need medical assistance soon as possible when we make it back to the ship. Activate the EMH and let Picard know we’re coming. Get him to run a sensor sweep on our location to see if we can pick up on Seven. Find out what happened to her. I don’t like it when my crew just disappear. Hopefully she’s still out there and we can get her back. You copy that? Over.”

Agnes sounded concerned and shaky. Her fear for her friends was clear in the way she confirmed the Captain’s orders, her words in a rush to all tumble out. 

“Oh my god, yeah. I’m on it. I mean, yes I copy Cris. Hang in there and get home fast. We’ll be waiting for you. I’ll get the old man on the sensor sweep for Seven right now. And the EMH too - in sickbay, I mean. We’ll be ready. Uh- Agnes out!”

Rios swore under his breath after the scientist’s sign-out and Raffi felt rather than truly registered him coming down beside her on one knee. He was doing something with her travel pack, Raffi was certain. Or maybe not. Things were getting hazier and she really felt like she could take a nap. If everything would just stop hurting for a second. She felt that she’d be really grateful if Cris would stop jostling her, too. 

“Shit. Elnor, tell me how Soji’s doing? Raffi’s fading quickly here.” 

There was more jostling and pain. She tried to bat his hands away in irritation. 

She heard Elnor’s voice, “still breathing. I think I can carry her if you look after Raffi.”

Raffi tried to lift her hand and wave them off. 

“I’m fine,” she said. Or, at least she felt she did. Some part of her brain that was still firing didn’t seem so sure that her words made sense. 

Rios took a long syringe of something and stabbed it through her EVA suit, then patched the hole with an emergency plaster that would seal her up again. Her suit whined for a moment and then went silent as the temporary seal held. Raffi felt the sharp sting of the needle going into her arm like a very unwelcome wake-up call. Then she felt the rush of amphetamines and adrenaline that the Captain had just pushed into her bloodstream. 

Her synapses roared back into life. 

“What the-  _ Fuck _ !” Raffi said reactively, and then groaned as her return to greater consciousness also brought her back into her world of pain. Her words were crystal clear this time. Her nerves sparked and fizzled with the hurt her brain had been trying to ignore by sending her to rest.

Rios hooked one hand around her waist and the other beneath her arm, and helped pull Raffi to her feet. She leaned against him heavily, resisting the urge to call both Cris and his mother both a thesaurus of inventive names. 

“Sorry Raff,” said Cris, “Had to pump you full of speed to get you out of here. Soji is with Elnor and my leg’s too fucked to lift you without help. Come,  _ hermana _ . You need to walk.”

Raffi grunted her acknowledgment. The pain distracted her from worrying about Seven. They started moving. 

“Screw the beacon for the minute,” said Rios to anyone, “Let’s get our asses back to the ship.”

*


	3. Getting Better

Raffi didn’t know how long she’d been in sickbay between the time that Cris had dragged her in there and the moment she woke up. She was still tired, but this was the tiredness of actual fatigue. It was different to the heavyweight sensation that had dragged her under deep enough that Cris had to intervene to get her on her feet. 

She looked around the room, at the familiar ring-lights of _La Sirena_ and felt thankful to be home. Then she remembered what had happened, and worry bit at her.

“Seven?” 

The ship’s EMH came to life by her bedside and started checking Raffi’s vitals. The readouts were scrolling up the adjacent wall. He turned back to Raffi when she tried to sit up. Her movement set alarms fussing on her bio bed as the machine objected to her leaving its care. Raffi lay back down again, with Emil’s guiding hand upon her shoulder. 

She tried asking once more, her voice rough from her body’s recent abuses, “did they find Seven of Nine? Is she okay?”

“Please Ms. Musiker, lie down,” Emil instructed. He helped her lie back against the biobed, until Raffi was cradled safe in its embrace. He helped her sip water from a squeeze pack and checked her readouts with a tiny frown. Raffi drank. The water was as sweet as nectar. She felt her headache ease a fraction. 

“I regret that the crew haven’t told me anything further regarding Seven of Nine,” he said. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his long brown cardigan and rocked back on his feet. His movement was close enough to Cris’s gestures that Raffi felt disoriented. Though that was probably also the medication she was receiving for the pain in her body and the injury to her head. 

“We haven’t found her yet?”

“I am afraid not. However, I understand that they are still searching. I had to send Mr. Picard to bed for his own health and safety. He was pushing himself, synthetic though his body may be, much harder than is wise for a man of his age.”

Then Raffi remembered the others, and felt guilty for not yet asking after them. 

“And Soji? Elnor? Cris?” she said. 

Emil did something industrious to the side of her bed and nodded once in satisfaction. He looked up as he answered her, an uncanny twin brother with her friend and Captain’s familiar face. 

“Ms. Asha is stable. The others are awake, recovering, and worried about you. I’ve had to chase them off a few times to let you rest properly,” said Emil. 

His face was stern, but he was clearly concerned about his patients and the well-being of La Sirena’s crew. 

“The Captain has been asking to see you when you’re awake. Now, would you prefer to rest or shall I alert him?”

Raffi thought about it for a second, feeling unsure about whether she should push herself, versus her nagging anxiety over Seven. In the end, she nodded anyway. She didn’t see herself being able to relax until she was certain that she’d at least made an effort in the race to find their friend. 

“Yeah Doc,” she said, “send him in.”

*

Cris was still limping as he made his way into the sickbay to Raffi’s side. He curled his fingers at the edge of her bed as though wasn’t sure what he should do with them. After a moment of reflection, he reached out for her hand, cradling it reassuringly. Raffi was grateful for the contact. 

Rios smiled at her. His whiskers bristled around his cheeks and chin. 

“Fucking lazy-ass. How’re you feeling?” he said. 

“Bit worse than usual, fatigued,” Raffi wrinkled her nose at his teasing smile, “worried about Seven, Soji too.” She readjusted his grip on her hand before continuing, “thanks for shooting me full of drugs to get me out of there, by the way,” she said, “guess I owe you one.”

“It’s _de nada, hermana_ ,” he said, “the least I could do for such a layabout. I shouldn’t let you be the Executive Officer, though. You don’t do enough. Sleepyhead.”

“ _Tengo suerte de que seas mi amigo_ , y’damned asshole. I know you love me the best.” Raffi grinned back at him, before wincing at the pain in her head. 

Rios shrugged and let Raffi’s hand down to rest above her stomach. He patted the curved slope of her shoulder with consideration. 

“On good days, perhaps,” he agreed, his dark gaze teasing. He was worried, and this was how he showed he cared about her. He slid to humour when there was too much to say. Raffi understood the feeling and she loved him for it. 

Raffi reached up and grabbed his hand again to draw him near. Her back muscles twinged, like they were stiffening. She wondered just how hard she’d hit the wall inside that room.

“Cris, about Seven. We need to figure out what happened. Get her back. I can’t-” Raffi stopped and swallowed. The crazy cocktail of fatigue and stress and painkillers brought her to the edge of tears. “Please don’t let us leave without her,” said Raffi. “Not without looking for her first. Not until we’re sure she isn’t somewhere else.”

Rios squeezed her fingers. He made a tangled knot of both their hands. Then he sat as best as he could along the edge of Raffi’s biobed. The cradling gel-form mattress shifted. 

“Hey, Raff, _como Dios es mi testigo_. I promise you we will retrieve her. We will find out what happened and we will get her back. This ship is not leaving anyone behind.”

Cris promised and Raffi believed him. He tugged on her hand. 

“So get better quick, huh? Then you can help us figure out what the fuck happened to her, and what that beacon’s for. Then we can all go find a bar and get shitfaced on Ranger’s Ale when we’ve got our crew back in once piece again. Elnor can shout his own drinks. You know how fast he takes them. We’re gonna solve this. We’re gonna find her. _Soy serio_ Raff. _No es broma amiga_. You’ve got to hang in there. Okay?”

Raffi nodded, feeling both buoyed as well as fatigued. It was an interesting juxtaposition. She cracked a smile at Cris through heavy eyelids. The pull of her medications and her bio bed were lulling her to rest. 

“Thanks Cris. Yeah. Okay. We’re finding Seven.”

Raffi slept. 

*


	4. Galatea

Getting better took more than three days. On the fourth day, Raffi grew impatient and wheedled the EMH into letting her go to Ops. 

“No longer than two hours,” Emil said. He was flicking a small pen light in front of Raffi’s eyes in turn and frowning fussily. “Then I want you back here taking a break. There’s no use pushing yourself too hard when you’re still on your way towards getting better.”

Raffi nodded her impatience as politely as she could and winced her way off the biobed. The stiff muscles in her legs and her back protested. She brushed Emil’s concerned hands away as she straightened up 

“I’m okay Doc, I’m okay.”

Emil looked unconvinced, but let her leave on her own two feet. Raffi knew that it conflicted with his programming to let her go only half-healed up. She also felt that he knew that she wouldn’t be able to take those last steps towards recovery until she had a chance to do something with her hands that would definitely be helping Seven. 

Raffi passed Soji’s biobed on the way out of sickbay. The anthropologist wasn’t in a coma, strictly speaking. It was more like she was just asleep, but wouldn’t wake. It was as though something in that storm-lashed building had reached for Soji and flipped the ‘off’ switch on the synth. That was the other mysterious thing about this whole fiasco too. Their resident scientist and by default, their only medical expert on the synthetics, Agnes Jurati, was at a loss. 

Agnes looked up from her scan as Raffi passed. She spoke with a cadence that was choppy and subtly maniacal. It sounded like she had a question mark on every second word. 

“Hey Raffi! Great to see you on your feet again. Do you need a hand getting up those stairs? Just gimme a minute.”

Agnes darted to Raffi’s side and hovered as though she was sure that the X.O. might fall on her face. Raffi took a hold of the metal railing and waved Agnes off, her legs felt sore but solid when she lifted her foot onto the last rung of the stairs. 

“Thanks hon, I’m fine. Tell me how Soji’s doing?” said Raffi, and made her slow climb up the staircase without help. 

The small, blonde scientist watched her from below. She wore a mix of worry and amusement on her face. 

“Soji’s okay, as far as I can tell. I don’t know why she won’t wake, but her biosigns say that she’s dreaming. I’ve got nothing else on that so far. All I’ve got to go on right now is ‘maybe she’ll wake up.’ But anyway, call out if you need anything?” Agnes offered, as Raffi reached the upper deck. 

Raffi lifted one hand in farewell, feeling like a giant looking down from above.

“Sure thing Agnes, and thanks for the update. It’s my turn to get started in on figuring out this mystery,” Raffi said. 

*

The data modulator that Raffi had taken from the floor after it had fallen from Seven’s fingers was sitting on the surface of the Ops console. It was as though it had spent all this time just waiting for her, patiently. In reality, Captain Rios had already scanned the small device to make sure the information that it stored wasn’t going to blow them up. Then he'd started transferring the data from the modulator to _La Sirena_ ’s main computer, preparing it for use. In between sensor sweeps for Seven, their benefactor Jean-Luc Picard had been picking out what might be sections of important information from the data, and feeding it to the starship’s Universal Translator. Even though Raffi could not understand the meaning of the text that she was looking at, with already an entire week’s head start, _La Sirena_ might be able to. 

Raffi picked up the modulator and weighed it in her hand. She wondered what secrets about the planet and its people it would reveal to her, or what it would hold back. She didn’t actually need the device now that Cris had transferred all its contents to the ship’s computer. The only reason he would have left it there then would be to act as a talisman of their quest to rescue Seven of Nine. Raffi understood the sentiment. She heaved in a breath, squeezed the talisman once, and then sat down in front of the Ops console and switched its holoscreen on.

“What do you have for me then?” Raffi said. The display started scrolling.

 _La Sirena_ compiled its reply.

*

The ship’s Universal Translator had deciphered thousands of words from the alien vocabulary, in the seven days that Picard had been feeding data to it. Though the computer still had the approximate level of comprehension as a toddler, it was an impressive feat of computing to translate the alien language into anything that could be broadly understood.

From what confused little Raffi could make of it, _La Sirena_ thought the beacon was an automated warning for a system failure. The ship’s computer also reckoned that either the entire planet, or the strange machine’s reporting system was called ‘ _Galatea’ ._ Something everyday and mundane had broken, but the repair crews had never come. _La Sirena_ seemed to believe that the original flag for the malfunction was hundreds, if not thousands of years old. That was an enigma in itself. Backup systems and fail safes had kicked in across the centuries as the machine sent out its calls for help. _Galatea_ was an orphan shouting out into the void.

Now _Galatea_ was on its way to collapse, and the beacon had been triggered in a last attempt to alert other members of the civilisation on neighbouring planets. The machine had not yet received an answer from its intended recipients, and judging by the list of long-term equipment failures, it didn’t look like it ever would. The fate of the civilization that had built the structure and installed the beacon was unknown. 

The information they’d downloaded from the console was mostly maintenance and system status reports. They were the automatic logs of a machine that had been told to do only one thing for the past thousand years or more. If the computer had accurately translated it, then that instruction was to keep charging the battery that would maintain the cloak. Raffi felt a tiny surge of satisfaction. So Seven’s guess was probably right, then. The battery powering the cloaking field that they’d encountered was being recharged by the storm. Only now that _Galatea_ was failing, the cloak was not as effective as it had been before. It was almost sheer dumb luck that the crew had detected it.

Raffi sighed and rubbed at her forehead in front of the data laid out on her Ops screen. The translated text logs were interesting, _really_ interesting, but her number one concern kept nagging her. 

“How is this gonna help me find Seven?”

 _La Sirena’s_ computer mistook Raffi’s comment for an actual command. The starship’s artificial intelligence subroutines started cross-referencing data from the crew’s EVA suits against the logs _Galatea_ made before the pulse that had thrown them off their feet. Raffi’s eyes widened as she watched the A.I. track the output from Seven’s suit sensors. She leaned towards the Ops console as she felt a rush of inspiration that came with a new idea.

“Oh, babe. Yes! That’s perfect,” Raffi said, addressing the ship’s computer. Nobody was listening, so her embarrassment was just an afterthought. She motioned to pull Seven’s data to the center of the holoscreen. Her EVA suit had been sending location coordinates and biometric readouts to _La Sirena_ for the duration of their mission. That was, up until Seven’s signal cut out in the few seconds that it took for her to disappear. Her other crewmate’s EVAs had kept _La Sirena_ updated for the duration of their away mission. That gave Raffi at least three distinct datasets that she could use to piece together what might have happened to Seven. 

Next, Raffi pulled up the data logs from _Galatea_. _La Sirena’s_ translation was patchy, but it was coherent enough that Raffi could slide the readings along the screen until she was fairly sure she’d aligned them with the time the starshiplost contact with Seven.

 _Galatea’s_ processors faithfully logged the machine’s equipment failure, sending out its call for attention and receiving no answer, again and again. There were so many lines of repetition that Raffi actually started to recognise the words without _La Sirena’s_ translation. So when the code sequence changed abruptly, the difference stuck out like a sore thumb. Raffi stopped scrolling down and blinked, her fingers traced a line beneath the novel reading. _La Sirena_ couldn’t translate what it was, but Raffi had already started thinking. 

“Huh. Computer, show me a log of the ship’s atmospheric sensors at the time of this new reading,” she said, highlighting the entry from _Galatea._

“Specify the readout to the away team’s location and show me the EVA suit data from the away team.”

 _La Sirena_ processed the data, and showed her the readouts from the atmospheric sensors alongside the suit logs she’d requested. 

Raffi changed her mind, her lower body shifting as she resettled in the Ops chair. 

“No. Actually, show me the away team’s suit data as separate individuals. Label the output with each team member’s name. Show me the output in temporal format,” Raffi paused as the ship gave her a query, “Lay the data across the page. Show the latest entries on the right. Go,” she said.

The data logs fanned out. Each crew person’s data showed as a single line with key points from their suit’s sensors each time the readings were significantly changed. Raffi looked at the data, her mind racing, chasing down her train of thought. In a moment, the pattern became clear and Raffi leant back from her console as comprehension dawned.

“ _Galatea_ was logging the storm surge,” Raffi murmured, as she looked at _La Sirena’s_ atmospheric sensors log a spike in the storm’s activity at the exact time that _Galatea’s_ error readings changed. She tried to think back on her hazy recollection of events from their away mission. She thought about the frightening burst of thunder that had sent the wall lights pulsing, and Soji’s stumble into the console after missing Elnor. 

“ _Oh_ _,_ ” Raffi said. Her pulse quickened as she made her next command.

“Computer, show me Soji and Seven of Nine’s suit data ten seconds before and after your sensors recorded the storm surge. Highlight changes in biometric output, geographic location and personal velocity in point-five-second intervals. Show the point-by-point change in _Galatea’s_ recordings within the same time frame.”

 _La Sirena_ beeped twice to comply, then displayed each data point as the X.O. had requested. 

The air rushed out of Raffi’s chest. There it was. The clue that she’d been looking for. 

On the Ops console readout, Soji’s suit data logged a massive influx of electrical energy that nearly put her suit’s sensors out of commission. Shortly after that, _Galatea’s_ reporter stated that an unknown protocol had been initialised. _La Sirena_ seemed to think that the text referred to a defence mechanism that had been activated in response to criteria matching what _Galatea_ saw as threatening input. Then _Galatea_ logged a new trigger to the defence protocol, which coincided with the same spike of energy in Seven’s suit that had nearly broken Soji’s. 

Raffi swore beneath her breath. “Computer, include location data for the rest of the crew. Exclude Picard and Jurati. Show velocity and vector.”

 _La Sirena_ complied. 

The change in the away team’s vector and velocity data was brutal and insanely fast. It was astonishing that they'd survived. The only point that stayed unchanged was the readout from Seven’s suit. It was also throwing out warnings that its systems were about to fail, and that the biometric data for its inhabitant was fading fast. Without access to urgent medical attention, Seven wasn't going to live for long. A few microseconds later, Seven's suit readings cut out.

Raffi remembered the brief second that she’d seen Seven crumpled on the floor. She heard the distant stutter of the data modulator falling from the console and landing next to Seven’s hand. Then, frustratingly nothing until the next time that she’d woken up, and the hazy minutes before Cris had shot her full of speed. Raffi felt like her heart was racing.

“Computer, magnify Seven of Nine’s location data after her suit recorded the electrical spike. Quantify the vector,” she said. 

Raffi waited for what felt like an endless second. The ship pulled up Seven’s EVA suit sensor readings. 

She stared. 

It was- well, if not _impossible_ , then it was at very best _extremely weird._ She held her breath, a curl of hope was warming in her chest, at odds with the sensation that perhaps her breakthrough had come several fucking days too late. It didn't change the fact that Seven was still missing. It didn't change how much Raffi longed to find her. Raffi tried not to think about the _bad._ Finding out would only take one question. It wouldn’t hurt to ask. 

“Computer, confirm read out?”

“Location data and vector are consistent with partial localised transport, the starship said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Thimblerig for troubleshooting at short notice. I appreciate it.


	5. Soji

Raffi woke to Agnes looming over her shoulder. The scientist was holding her right arm out. Her fingers were loosely curled as though she’d been preparing to shake the X.O. awake. 

Both parties flinched backward, briefly startled. Agnes started apologising. 

“Hey, sorry. I was actually coming to get you anyway. Emil said he’d let you stay up here long enough, and well-”

Raffi held up one hand to cut the stream of consciousness off. 

“That’s alright Agnes,” Raffi said. 

Her neck ached from resting her head against the Ops console. The euphoria she’d felt when she’d made her breakthrough on Seven’s suit data had soured to frustration when  _ La Sirena _ was unable to produce anything on  _ Galatea’s  _ defence protocol, or the partial local transport. Her head had started to hurt again from spending too many hours without resting. But the lure of finding Seven had been too promising to ignore. Raffi had only meant to rest her eyes for a moment before making one last attempt at cracking  _ Galatea’s _ mystery. Judging by the renewed stiffness in her shoulders, Raffi guessed she must have put her head down for quite some time.

“What do you need?”

“Soji is finally conscious,” Agnes said. 

She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her favourite coat and rocked forwards on her toes. The hem of the coat was long enough that it almost came down to her knees. Raffi wondered if it made Agnes feel like she was working in a laboratory. The coat reminded Raffi of the outfits she’d seen scientists wear in random holovideos. 

Agnes returned to her heels again, her feet rested flat against the floor. 

“I wasn’t sure I should disturb you, but the first thing Soji said when she came back to us was that she had something big to tell you. She wouldn’t tell me or Emil anything, she was just-” Agnes paused, her eyebrows furrowed as she searched for the right word, “-focused. She’s been pretty adamant.”

Raffi reluctantly got up from the Ops chair, her curiosity warring over what Soji wanted to tell her, versus the promise of finding Seven if she could just crack open the mysteries of  _ Galatea. _ She saved her research before powering down the console. The EMH would probably want her to have an actual rest once he got her back in sickbay. At any rate, Raffi recognised that she wouldn’t be as effective in her analyses if she was too fatigued to concentrate. As much as she felt too wired to sleep, she would have to let it happen eventually. 

She nodded once at Agnes and let her lead the way. 

“After you.”

*

Soji’s back was propped up with a pillow against her biobed as Raffi followed Agnes through the mess hall and into the sick bay, then came to a stop beside the archaeologist’s bed. Soji nodded at her and Raffi smiled back, albeit briefly. There was something mildly absurd about it. The strange tableau of two somewhat walking-wounded that Raffi thought she and Soji made. Emil ran a scanner over Soji and then fussed at Raffi for not coming back and resting sooner. Raffi made the standard noises of remorse and agreement as he hovered. She felt increasingly curious to learn what Soji had to say.

Soji watched the interaction in silence. Her expression was unreadable, but Raffi guessed that perhaps her green eyes might be concerned, or anxious. Emil produced a biobed for Raffi and eyed her sternly until she gave in and sat on it with marginal good grace. Agnes and the EMH left the pair in relative privacy once Emil was satisfied that both his patients were suitably horizontal, or whatever specific medical parameter his subroutines desired. 

Soji took an apprehensive breath.

“This is gonna sound crazy,” she said, eyeing Agnes and the EMH who had retreated to the other side of the sickbay. Raffi furrowed her eyebrows and made a one-handed gesture that meant ‘ _ go on _ ?’

“While I was stuck sleeping -I don’t know if it was a dream, or some sort of limbo, or perhaps an alternative reality -but I was in the same place as Seven of Nine. Agnes was trying to tell me she was missing, but I already knew.”

A million different questions rushed through Raffi’s head, each one fighting to be the first one off her tongue. Raffi had so many of them that she couldn’t choose just one to ask. Eventually, Raffi settled on the simplest question. 

“Tell me everything.”

Soji looked a little shocked to be taken seriously so quickly. She looked at Raffi for a millisecond as if to make sure the X.O. had understood. 

“Please,” Raffi said.

Soji started speaking. She still looked a little tense.

“Back when we were all in that building, we all got knocked back by that huge pulse of energy. Do you remember?” 

“It's the same damn reason why you and I are both in here,” Raffi offered, with a slight smile to underline her humour.

The synth smiled back, her round eyes crinkled at the corners in a perfect replication of the humanoid quirk. “Yeah, true,” Soji said, and Raffi saw the apprehension ease from her shoulders as she saw that Raffi was unlikely to judge her. 

“Seven and I weren’t sure what had happened at first, but we figured that something had gone wrong. Obviously, I guess. But anyway, we both remembered getting injured by that energy pulse and then ending up-” Soji stopped and searched for a word to describe whatever it was that she’d experienced. Raffi waited for her, impatiently, but held back on pushing Soji for information in case Raffi’s own hastiness made the archaeologist forget important details. 

Soji continued with a shrug, “- _ somewhere _ . I’m not sure what it was. Just a strange black place that didn’t seem to have any physical dimensions. We couldn’t find any walls or see or feel the floor, but there was definitely gravity - or, at least something that we could perceive as ‘the right way up’.”

Raffi could finally wait no longer. She sat up in her biobed, aware that she’d be setting off alarms. She waved Emil and Agnes back when they looked up and made movements to come and check on her. The EMH rolled his eyes and did something inside his subroutine interface that muted the biobed’s protests. Raffi was thankful for his understanding.

“But what about Seven?” Raffi asked, “is she okay? Do you know how we can find her? How did you make it back?”

Soji blinked at the influx of questions. To Raffi’s relief, she started to answer them without complaint.

“Seven is as fine as she can be, I guess? It’s hard to tell whether we had actual physical bodies, or if we were just interacting through our consciousness. If we were, then that might explain why we could sense gravity, but not find the walls or the floor. I don’t think I could feel any pain, or any physical anything, really. Seven never mentioned it either.”

“The partial transport,” Raffi whispered.

“What?” Soji asked.

“I was looking at the data that we downloaded from the machine.  _ La Sirena _ thinks its name was  _ Galatea _ . J-L. fed the data to the universal translator and we were able to decipher some of the language it was using.” 

Soji nodded her comprehension as Raffi kept explaining, “ _ Galatea  _ activated that pulse in response to something it thought was threatening. The first time it did it was just after you touched one of the consoles.  _ La Sirena _ got a whole bunch or error warnings from your EVA suit data. But that first pulse was, I don’t know, kinda like a warning. Or the real pulse was still warming up.  _ La Sirena _ seemed to think that  _ Galatea _ had been partially inactive for centuries. Just running maintenance logs until it was too broken to keep functioning without assistance. That’s why we were able to pick up its distress call.”

Raffi started talking faster as she started putting her theory together. Whether or not Soji was following became a lesser concern. That feeling of euphoria was coming back again.

“When Seven touched it, that’s when  _ Galatea _ fired the pulse and it knocked us all off our feet,  _ except for Seven _ . I only came around for a moment when it knocked us out, but the pulse was -I’m not sure, maybe responding to her in the same way that it did to you? I mean- I touched the console once too, and it was fine, but when either of you touched it, the machine responded with force. Shortly after the pulse hit us, Seven vanished, and  _ La Sirena _ received data from her EVA suit that suggested that there’d been a local transport that was  _ incomplete _ . What if-”

Soji frowned as she tried to follow Raffi’s logic, “You think we were stuck in a transport limbo? Like a memory buffer linked to  _ Galatea _ or something else there on the surface?” Soji asked. Then, “but that doesn’t really explain why I was inside the memory buffer if I was never dematerialised. Or why it only transported Seven and not me too, or even all of us.”

Raffi fluttered her hands in front of her, conceding Soji’s argument. That was a point she’d have to think about later. 

“That’s a fair point,” Raffi said. “But what if there’s something specific about the two of you that  _ Galatea _ saw as threatening? I remember Seven saying that her Borg Collective memories held no reference to that civilisation or their technology. It seemed to be unnerving her.”

Soji looked up as though she’d thought of something, “Elnor said there was a transwarp conduit nearby. The Romulans in this area avoided going there. I’m pretty sure that Seven said that the technology would have been irresistible to the Borg, if they had been able to detect  _ Galatea’s  _ people. Maybe that’s why they were hiding with that cloaking field. Could it be part of a Borg counter defence?”

Raffi nodded along with her, thinking the words as Soji spoke. 

“Possibly. Or a protocol that responds to synthetic technology that wasn’t native to their species in general,-” the X.O. paused, remembering who she was talking to, “-uh, no offense.”

Soji let it pass, understanding Raffi’s theory. 

“None taken. So assuming that it was some sort of Borg counter defensive system, perhaps it only partially responded to me because I’m a synthetic being, but more violently against Seven because she used to be Borg?”

Raffi shrugged, “as far as a theory goes, it’s better than nothing,” she said.

Soji reached out for Raffi’s hand and squeezed it gently. Raffi found the unexpected gesture calming. It was yet another simple reminder that the crew of  _ La Sirena  _ supported her. It was an easy thing to lose sight of with her need to rescue Seven filling every thought inside her head. They were pushing more than eight days without her now, and Raffi missed her more than she could say. It was only the thought that Seven needed her to keep on functioning, to figure out the mystery and bring her back that kept Raffi's hope alive.

Soji let go of Raffi’s hand and lay back against her biobed. 

“We should get the others in here and figure out a plan,” she said.


	6. Rescue

The crew sat around the mess hall tables, two metal-meshed rectangles with equally rectangular benches, whose design was more utilitarian than chic. Rios paced beside the broader length of both tables and pinched a cigar between his fingers. It was unlit and just for show. The aim of their meeting was to finalise the details of their rescue plan.

“So we don’t want to risk fixing whatever’s wrong with _Galatea_ ,” Rios said, continuing. “Even if we could figure out their technology, or replicate the necessary parts, we don’t have any way of knowing how dangerous its systems might be if we manage to return it to full power. It damn near took us all out of action at a fraction of its capacity the last time.”

He paced a half-step and turned to Raffi. His next comment was directed at the crew, but was also specifically directed towards her.

“We also don’t know what it might do to Seven if, and assuming we’ve got the right idea, the transport buffer she’s stuck in returns to full strength and completes the transport.” 

Rios frowned. “Probably nothing good,” he said. 

Raffi nodded, catching Soji’s glance. They had to wait another day for the EMH to release them both from sick bay. They spent their time figuring out a way to rescue Seven without triggering _Galatea_ ’s defences or allowing the machine to complete the partial transport. Raffi picked up from Chris’s thread and started talking through their plan.

“We want to send a survey drone into the structure where we encountered _Galatea_ , and use it to amplify the signal between the machine and _La Sirena_ to hack the memory buffer that’s holding Seven. Our ship doesn’t carry any tactical surveillance units. We’re really only equipped with the right tools to repel boarders. Therefore we’ll be retrofitting a medical unit from sick bay with a signal booster that will allow us to relay code from _La Sirena_. We know enough about the system’s language to make it look as though _La Sirena_ is using the same encryption algorithm. That should buy us a bit of time to hack the buffer before the system kicks us out.”

She threw the conversation back to Cris, who kept with his pacing around the tables. He gestured as though delivering the next part of their mission from the tip of his cigar. 

“Right, right,” Rios agreed, “so we’re working on the assumption that _Galatea_ will probably react badly from any direct contact with technology that isn’t native to its people. Raff, your masking code should buy us time with that, as you said.” Raffi nodded her affirmative. Then he continued, “We’re also assuming that transported matter won’t change state from the time it was initialised to the time it’s rematerialised. That means Seven might need immediate medical attention once we get her out of there. _La Sirena_ ’s last input from Seven’s EVA suit said that her health was critical.”

Rios paused and took a breath. He walked to the head of both tables and started calling roles out for the crew, starting with Elnor, who managed to look both stoic and startlingly young.

“Kid, you’re on standby at the transporter pad to help the old man move Seven down to sick bay once we get her back. Agnes, you’ll be operating the transport console-” 

He reached down and touched the scientist’s shoulder when her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to protest. His voice was reassuring as he spoke.

“Hey, Agnes. You’ve got this. You’ve worked with the transporter before and you did really, really well, ok?” You’re a competent person, yeah?” his smile was brief and only for Agnes as he squeezed her shoulder once, _“cree en ti mismo un poco más. Tienes esto.”_

Agnes still looked concerned, but she seemed to believe him anyway. 

Then he moved on to Soji and Raffi. The young synth seemed to sit straighter in her seat. Her body language was alert as she paid attention. 

Raffi couldn’t help the urge to fidget too. Sure, she and Soji had come up with the plan, but a lot of skill was resting on her shoulders. A lot could go wrong when they hacked into the machine. And there was no way of knowing what _Galatea_ ’s response would be if it caught them trying to sneak in and interfere with its programming. If something else happened to Seven because Raffi’s skills were not quite _there_ , then Raffi wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to forgive herself. 

Rios gestured up towards the bridge of their starship and sat upon the edge of one metal table, close beside the two women. He pointed with his cigar at Raffi, aiming the tip towards her feet rather than at her face, which she appreciated.

“Raff. You, me and Soji will be on the bridge doing the heavy lifting. Raff, you’re on Ops trying to hack into _Galatea_ ’s transporter memory buffer without pissing off the machine. Soji, you’re backing Raffi up on tactical. You keep an eye on _Galatea_ and make sure it’s not coming up with any counter defences.”

Then Rios turned the conversation on himself, filling out his part in their plan to rescue Seven. 

“Any countermeasures the machine does come up with, we probably can’t fight back against. I’m gonna be in my chair ready to fly us the hell away from there if anything goes wrong. This is a rescue mission to get Seven back alive, not a hopeless showdown where all of us die trying.” 

The Captain stood up from his perch at the table and rolled a kink out of his neck. He tucked the cigar into his pocket and rubbed his palms against his thighs. 

“Alright. Let’s go,” he said. 

*

Raffi turned away from the Ops console to look back down the length of the ship. J-L. and Elnor had placed the retrofitted medical drone on _La Sirena_ ’s transporter pad. Now they were waiting for Agnes to initialise the transport. Raffi battled the urge to start fiddling with something. Her hands, her hair, the zipper on her pants pocket. The coffee that she’d sucked down at breakfast hadn’t been a wise idea, but she felt like she needed it, even if only for the sentimental thought that Seven also loved her morning coffee too. At least now Raffi felt alert, if not particularly calm. 

There was a triumphant shout from Agnes as the medical drone successfully dematerialised, and rematerialised again on the surface of the planet. Agnes shouted across the ship to them that its systems were all operating “a-okay!”

From the corner of her eye, Raffi saw Rios bite down on the end of his cigar. At least she wasn’t the only one who felt nervous.

The drone was on the planet now. So far, so good. 

Raffi spun her chair to the front of the ship again to face her console. Behind her, she could hear Agnes say, “transferring control of the drone to the Captain,” and Rios’s affirmative grunt and click of his fingers as he took command. 

The drone’s video feed came up on their starship’s view screen. The planet was, as expected, hauntingly dark. The grass fields glowed, still beautiful, but now with a ripple that looked sinister. Raffi knew that it was simply her experience from inside _Galatea_ ’s machine room that made her think that, but she thought it anyway. It was a normal response for a once-stung animal to be cautious. She wondered if _Galatea_ was watching them back, trying to figure them out. 

The feed shimmered as the drone passed through the remnants of the cloaking field. _Galatea_ ’s building loomed into view. The electrical storm still roiled around it. The lightning strikes flashed and sparked against the surface of the tower. Occasionally with enough rapid brightness that it made the drone’s video feed go white.

The feed went sideways as Rios flipped the drone on its edge to squeeze it through the crack in the wall where the crew had entered. The medical drone’s forward lights came on, cutting through the darkness as the feed adjusted to the sullen glowing of the building’s inner walls. Everything about the alien machine room still looked normal, as far as Raffi knew what ‘normal’ for _Galatea_ looked like. The dust was scuffed and drifted from where the crew had disturbed it, and _Galatea_ ’s consoles had returned to their initial resting grey.

All was quiet.

Rios hovered the drone close beside the central console and pulled his cigar from the corner of his mouth.

“All right, we’re in position,” he said, eyeing the viewscreen tightly. “Raff, you wanna patch _La Sirena_ to the main console?”

Raffi’s immediate and private responses were a combination of ‘hell yes, what are we waiting for?’ and ‘fuck no.’ Whatever course they took from here, Seven would either be alive and with them, or dead and missing by the time they were done. At least at this moment, their friend’s fate was simply ‘unknown’.

Crís frowned. The drone’s feed wavered as he leant toward the Ops console. He corrected its attitude hastily.

“Raff?” he prompted.

Raffi jumped in her seat, the war in her subconscious faded into the background. She touched her fingers to her control panel and the operations interface came to life. Raffi shook her head to clear away the fog of apprehension and apologised for her inattention. The Captain nodded slightly, but otherwise waved her apology away. The crew were all in on this rescue effort together. Apologies for anxiety were unnecessary. Everybody felt the same.

“Alright,” Raffi said, “initialising hack code and patching _La Sirena_ to _Galatea_ ’s mainframe.”

She tapped a symbol on her display, which responded by tracing a line from the blue square representing _La Sirena_ to another, darker-coloured square which represented _Galatea_ ’s mainframe. The video feed from the medical drone showed the consoles inside the machine room flickering as Raffi’s input roused them out of standby. 

Raffi heard Crís’s satisfied grunt behind her, “Looks like you’re succeeding,” and then she cast a glance at Soji, who tilted her chin to confirm that she was ready. _Galatea_ ’s flickering consoles steadied, and Raffi placed the readout from _Galatea_ ’s mainframe on one side of her holoscreen, and _La Sirena_ ’s input on the other. She overlaid _La Sirena_ ’s translation of _Galatea_ ’s native language on her display and the starship gave its interpretation of the readouts wherever possible. 

All looked quiet in the medical drone’s feed of the machine room consoles. Raffi paused, she checked her codes. And then to Soji she said, “Everything looks alright here. Anything on your end?”

Soji scanned her own holoscreen, with _La Sirena_ ’s translation overlaid on it. Raffi watched her swiping quickly through it, her enhanced synapses processing information much faster than any purely organic mind. The synth looked up when she was ready. 

“Nothing from _Galatea_. I think we’re fine.”

Raffi took a breath. So that was the first part done. Now all she had to do was convince the alien computer that she was not a threat and to ignore her remotely-input program as she tried to find its transport memory buffer and locate where it was storing Seven. 

“Nothing to it,” Raffi said, though it was mostly to herself. Then, as she started to send through her code, she said louder, “Sending through our request to access the memory core.”

Soji brought a new display screen up, her fingers dancing as she followed the lines of Raffi’s code to _Galatea_ down. 

“A minor security protocol has initialised,” she said.

Rios leaned forwards in his seat. His fingers twitched against _La Sirena_ ’s holographic manoeuvring controls. “Anything bad?”

Soji shook her head. “No. It’s querying _La Sirena_ ’s request and asking it for clarification,” her brow furrowed as she read her screen, “it seems to be confused. We might have lost something in translation.”

“Checking it,” Raffi said. 

She triple-checked her code. _La Sirena_ ’s comprehension of _Galatea_ ’s language was still fairly basic, so she’d tried to keep her commands as simple as possible. It was the best way to avoid mistakes, but there was no approach that would be foolproof. Raffi had to work with what they had, though that sometimes meant hoping for the best. 

Raffi adjusted some of her commands and sent them through to the alien mainframe again. 

“That should do it,” she said. “Soji?”

On _La Sirena_ ’s viewscreen, the feed from the medical drone showed the consoles in the machine room changing their displays. The outputs moved from lines of text and colour to a network of shapes and lines, like a framework that showed the connections between several somethings whose identity Raffi could only guess at. _La Sirena_ started translating. 

The solution it came back with read ‘Memory Frame.’

Raffi grinned in triumph, the small success was glowing. She looked across at Soji and then behind her chair to Rios.

“We’re in!”

Without waiting for a response, she addressed their ship’s computer. 

“Computer, identify the memory buffer for _Galatea_ ’s transporter.”

The crew was quiet as _La Sirena_ searched. All eyes were on the video feed from the medical drone on _La Sirena_ ’s viewscreen. 

Without looking away from her Ops console readout, Raffi asked, “Soji, any response from _Galatea_?”

The synth was already looking. “She’s alert, but isn’t taking any action.”

Rios scoffed around his unlit cigar. “Huh. So it’s a woman now?”

Soji shrugged, her eyes still glued intently to her screen. 

“I guess I was thinking of that Old-Terran maritime tradition of referring to ships as female. That, and _La Sirena_ ’s translation of the machine’s name reminded me of a woman in one of Earth’s ancient stories. A beautifully-carved statue whose perfection brought it to life.”

Rios adjusted the tilt of his cigar. Raffi wondered if he ever planned on lighting it. Probably not.

The Captain looked away from Soji and returned his attention to the forward screen. He settled back in his chair, looking thoughtful.

“Huh,” Rios said. 

_La Sirena_ ’s computer interrupted further conversation as the A.I. drew a box around one of the nodes on _Galatea_ ’s readout and magnified the area on Raffi’s holoscreen. 

“Transport Memory Buffer located,” said _La Sirena_.

Raffi duplicated her readout to overlay onto the main viewscreen so that the crew could see what she was seeing. _La Sirena_ highlighted the relevant point in red.

“That’s where Seven of Nine is?” Rios asked. He sounded hopeful, just as Raffi felt.

Raffi shook her head, “not quite,” she said, but they were close. Again, she addressed the ship’s computer. 

“Computer, scan the buffer for biometric data matching crew person Seven of Nine.”

“Scanning,” the computer said.

Soji gasped at the same moment the video feed on the ship’s main viewscreen turned a sullen green, casting the same light over the bridge crew. Raffi looked up to see the wall lights in the machine room glowing. She was reminded of the change in lighting just before they first experienced _Galatea_ ’s defensive pulse. 

Soji answered Raffi’s question before she could voice it. 

“ _Galatea_ is responding. She’s initiating security protocols.”

Raffi started working faster, urging _La Sirena_ to complete the scan for Seven’s biological signature before _Galatea_ ’s security subroutines caught up with them. They were racing now. Raffi swiped some reference codes through to Soji’s station. 

“Try using some of these commands to counteract the security subroutines,” said Raffi. “Delay _Galatea_ as long as you can - _La Sirena_ needs more time to scan the buffer.”

“I’m on it,” Soji said.

“Are we in danger?” Rios asked.

Soji’s response was tense as Raffi worked. The synth’s hands were moving faster, patching together lines of counter-code.

“No. Just give us another second. I think I can hold _Galatea_ off with Raffi’s reroutes.”

The Captain sounded gruff, “Alright.”

Raffi tuned the others out as she received a response from _La Sirena_. The readout said that a positive match was found. Raffi started sending code, her hands moving almost as fast as Soji’s at the Tactical console. It wasn’t clear how much time they had, but the inevitable response from _Galatea_ was unlikely to be peaceful.

_La Sirena_ beeped to let Raffi know it had a lock. They were almost there. She’d finally done it. Finally - almost. They were close to retrieving Seven. It felt exhilarating. Raffi felt adrenaline kick in.

She shouted back across the ship to Agnes.

“I’ve got a lock on Seven’s signature,” Raffi said. Her pulse was pounding. “Agnes, ready the transporter. Standby.”

She didn’t have to wait before Agnes responded, “Ready!”

Soji was looking worried, they all were. Soji’s hands were still dancing over her console. Raffi could see that she was counteracting _Galatea_ ’s security subroutines as rapidly as she could, but even her superior synthetic reflexes couldn’t outpace the alien computer.

“ _Galatea_ ’s getting faster. I can’t keep her back much longer.”

Raffi wasted no more time, “Initialise transport Agnes, go! Go!”

“Initialising!”

The transporter hummed.

Soji blanched, her fingers stilled.

“She’s caught us.”

The forward screen’s video feed went red. Raffi’s heart dropped like a stone.

Behind her, Rios ground out tensely, “Raff?”

The video feed went static, and then blank.

“The medical drone is dead,” said Soji. Raffi could see her switching to _La Sirena_ ’s external scans, “Sensors say a pulse is coming. We should-”

They were out of time. Seven was-

Through the closing fog of panic and dread, Raffi heard Agnes cry out.

“We have her! You guys, we have Seven of Nine! She’s alive - oh, thank fucking god. She’s alive!”


	7. Reunited

Seven of Nine was alive but her condition was serious. 

Raffi sat at the top of the stairs, alternating between wringing her fingers or resting her chin in her hands. Jean-Luc and Elnor had carried the unconscious Ranger into sickbay. The two men grunted with the effort of hefting Seven onto the biobed, shifting around as the EMH hurried over to help. Her failing biosigns set off what sounded like every alert tone in the sickbay almost as soon as the trio lowered her down. The EMH immediately removed her helmet and cut through the fabric of her EVA suit with a knife. His commands were firm but hurried as he dismissed the crew from his workspace. The Ex-Borg’s injuries were severe enough that she really didn’t have time for Emil to be distracted. The sickbay’s doors slid shut on the alert tones and pushed the ship into an eerie waiting silence shortly after that.

Even though Raffi couldn’t be near Seven while Emil worked, it was close enough just to sit at the top of the stairs to the mess hall and wait there instead. Raffi also had to admit that part of her was also unwilling to occupy an actual chair in the mess hall. If she did, then she’d be that much closer to the sick bay if anything went wrong. It meant she’d hear the bad news sooner. That thought was far too much to bear. It made her fingers wind tighter together, her palms feeling the blunt pricking of her fingernails. 

So she sat up here at the top of the stairs. She waited, and she wrung her hands, and she blocked anyone’s passage if they wanted to use the stairwell. Though right now, no one did.

The double doors to the sickbay were closed. Their bulk muffled most of what passed through, but Raffi kept picking up noises, real or imagined, and trying to figure out from those clues what was happening. In the short space between sickbay and the upper deck, Raffi could hear the pad of the doctor’s footsteps. They were urgent at first, then slowed as he rested in one place. She heard the pneumatic hiss of the biobed scanner activating. The click of the edges as it slid shut. The patter of tools. Hyposprays, nerve stimulators, other specialised instruments which Raffi couldn’t identify. The maelstrom of alarms that had sounded when they first brought Seven into the sickbay had been shut off. Emil must have rerouted the medical system’s alerts directly to his program’s subroutines. Now it was just the sound of work, muted, and his ever-present pacing.

Now it was the relative quiet that was getting to Raffi the most. It wasn’t as though she expected the ship’s doctor to call out Seven’s vitals every few minutes, but the lack of updates on Seven’s condition was keeping the X.O. on the edge. Sure, the calmer pace of the EMH’s movements had to mean things had improved. But, the main thing prowling around in Raffi’s mind right now was the thought that they were going to lose Seven anyway, despite only just getting her back. 

Soft, purposeful footfalls sounded from somewhere behind Raffi, her hyper focused attention only just caught the hiss of the holodeck doorway sliding closed. The X.O. jumped and hastily shuffled over on the stairs to make room for whoever wanted to climb down. An old gnarled hand gently cupped her shoulder, stilling her motion. Raffi looked up into J.L.’s face.

The old man smiled. It was a gentle curl of care and reassurance that he fixed on Raffi before he gestured at the space she’d just created, asking wordlessly if he could intrude. 

Raffi shrugged, drawing her knees up to her chest atop the stairs and wrapped her arms around them. She rested her chin against her knees and tilted her head towards J.L. Her eyes stayed fixed upon the closed doors of the sickbay. 

Her old friend leant against the rail, where it stood guard beside the stairs. Despite his brand new synthetic body, the old man still moved as though age still put a stiffness in his joints. Agnes had asked him about it once, while he and the rest of their little band of crew were seated around the table eating.

‘The mind demands that the body bears a measure of authenticity, I suppose,’ Jean-Luc said, and the old man had shrugged enigmatically and tuned back to his food. 

In the present, Raffi took a breath. 

“She’s still in there,” Raffi said. 

Jean-Luc did not appear to have anything specific to say. Raffi heard him sigh and fold his arms across his chest. The hush of cotton from his jumper made the softest of noises in the relative dark. The ambient lights from the mess hall had lowered to half-power while no-one seemed to need to use them. 

“Can I bring you some tea?” J.L. suggested. 

Raffi could hear the rough note of apprehension in his voice. She took a moment to consider it, and realised that now her attention had shifted, the thought of drinking something actually sounded really good. 

She nodded, her muscles working to swallow against her suddenly Saharan throat. 

“Actually, yeah. I’d appreciate that.”

Picard made a soft noise of acknowledgement. His legs moved, the folds of linen on his pale khakis rumpled as he left his temporary position and made his way past Raffi and then down the stairs into the mess hall. The lights powered back up to normal ambience in his wake. Raffi blinked and her focus shifted to Jean-Luc working; to his hunched shoulders and shiny bald head as he stooped to ask the replicator for two hot mugs of Earl Grey. The replicator hummed. The machine’s sound was bright and indifferent, and the familiar scent of bergamot wafted on a breath of steam and air currents to Raffi’s nose.

She put a hand out to stop her friend from struggling back up the mess hall stairs.

“No, no. Stay there J.L. I’ll join you,” Raffi said, and unfolded herself from the ball of sadness and anxiety that she’d been making on the stairs. 

Jean-Luc nodded and slid the tea across the metal table top as Raffi sat down upon the small stool opposite him. He raised his eyebrows at her mug, prompting her to pick it up and blow the heat from off the top of it. Despite herself, Raffi cracked a tiny smile and did as she was bidden. The hot steam warmed her face and made her close her eyes in reflex. Cautiously, she sipped the tea. For a moment, Raffi felt better. 

“Like magic, isn’t it?” J.L. said, copying her movements and drinking from his mug. 

Raffi wrinkled her nose, half in expectation of a long-winded ramble about the virtues of a good strong cup of tea. Sometimes it seemed like the old man could go on about the subject for days. 

She sipped again. Her brain acknowledging that now she was distracted by her steaming cup, the lack of action from the sick bay wasn’t quite so harrowing. 

Raffi nipped the oncoming monologue on tea drinking in the bud with another wry half-smile. 

“Thanks J.L., but don’t start,” she said.

Jean-Luc laughed once, caught, and spread his hands wide open on either side of his mug. He curled them back around its warmth again. 

“Very well. I won’t. You’re welcome however.”

He looked towards the sick bay, with its closed doors reflecting cross-hatched patterns from the mess hall lighting on the floor. His mug was almost hidden behind his hands. 

He seemed to contemplate the closed doors for a moment. Then he said, “You know, I am aware that it is slim comfort at this time, but I am sure that Seven of Nine will survive this.”

Raffi bit her lip, her real and gnawing worry raised its head. 

“I know,” she said, echoing him, “I know. But what if she doesn’t?”

Jean-Luc looked down. His old man’s hands trembled against the concave of his mug. 

“Then that may be a burden that none of us can carry, but one that we must face together,” he said. 

Her old friend paused and drank his tea. Raffi watched the way the meditative motion of it helped him find his center. Raffi drank as well, but she struggled for the peace of mind to capture hers. 

“I don’t want her to die, J.L.”

Picard sighed and leant his forearm on the table. His other hand lifted upward to rub across the pale skin of his head. He seemed to listen carefully, his head tilted slightly towards sickbay. 

“Then trust that she will not. That might be all that we can do here.” 

He reached out for her hand, but stopped himself before he got there. His fingers rested just shy of Raffi’s wrist. “Raffi, you and I, we’ve been in this place before in Starfleet, waiting for the word on injured crew.” He pushed his fingertips against the table by Raffi’s hand, “Remember? In times like those, I think we sat. Like we are now. And we listened and waited for word to come.”

He finally touched Raffi’s hand. It was a fleeting press against the back of her knuckles. They were clenched and white around her mug. 

“Listen, Raffi,” Jean-Luc said. “What do you hear?”

Raffi frowned. Her lips tightened as she tried to understand what J.L. wanted to say. She listened.

“I hear Emil working,” she said, and she imagined the patter of tools and the endless alerts of the machines. Raffi shut her eyes against it, pressing her fingers tight around her mug. It was too much to bear. 

Jean-Luc made a sound that was low in his throat. Raffi felt his fingers wrap around her wrist, and then tap against the back of her hand. 

“Raffi,” he said firmly.

Raffi opened her eyes and glared in frustration, “what?”

“You’re not focusing. Listen properly.”

She squashed the impulse to shake J.L. off and demand that he just leave her the hell alone so that she could worry over Seven in peace. Her friend,  _ their _ friend was injured and she didn’t feel like meditation. Too much in her world was at stake. 

“Look, J.L., thanks for the tea, but I-”

At that moment, Raffi was interrupted by the hush of the sickbay doors opening , followed by the sound of Emil stepping through them. Raffi stood and turned to face the hologram, nearly tripping over her metal chair in haste. 

She ignored J.L. and addressed the EMH, “Is Seven-?”

The EMH nodded at both of them. Raffi caught Jean-Luc glancing at her as he returned the doctor’s acknowledgement. That enigmatic half-smile he sometimes wore was gracing the old man’s face. Finally, Raffi understood what he’d been telling her. 

Emil reached for Raffi’s elbow, gesturing for her to follow him back into sickbay, as Jean-Luc sat back at their tiny table and sipped his tea. 

“Seven of Nine is stable, Ms. Musiker,” Emil said, leading her gently. “I understand you’ve been waiting.”

Raffi followed him, wiping her sweaty hands upon her pants, “wait, how did you?”

The warm-lit ambience of the mess hall was washed out by the bright, clinical lighting of the med bay as they walked further into the central room, past the small workstations where the EMH did his tests. 

Emil smiled a little, the twitch of it was hidden in his beard. “I keep tabs,” he offered simply, “it is my job, you know.”

Raffi swallowed, growing distracted as they reached the private medical alcove where he’d been treating Seven. 

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense,” she said. 

They stopped upon reaching Seven’s bedside. Raffi could see her breathing, her face was pale and her eyes were closed, sleeping. The skin around her Borg implants and the hollows beneath her eyes were a mottled gunmetal blue and grey. She looked terrible. Small and broken and fragile. It was a relief to see her though, alive and whole. Recovering. Seven’s presence, the fact that she was with them after so many days without her, was the most beautiful thing that Raffi had seen. 

Raffi brushed her knuckles against the medical stabiliser that was arched over Seven’s body. It clicked as it worked. It was a low-key, focused mutter. Its displays tracked Seven’s brain activity and her heartbeat, her blood chemistry, and many other measures that Raffi didn’t recognise. Raffi dragged her eyes from Seven and looked at the doctor. She blinked against a blur of tears, surprised to find her eyes were wet.

Raffi spoke softly. “Can she hear me?”

Emil tilted his chin and nodded once.

“I believe so. I had to fight to get her nanoprobes operational. Whatever she encountered down there shut down the majority of her Borg-supported systems. She needs most of them to keep functioning, unfortunately. I think the fact that she was stuck inside that transport buffer might have been the one thing that kept her alive. “

He stepped around Raffi and adjusted Seven’s medical stabiliser, his focus intent upon his patient until he was satisfied with her scan. 

“Agnes mentioned something about Borg counter-defences,” Emil continued, “Shutting off Borg technology might have been part of that system. We’re lucky it wasn’t working properly, or Seven wouldn’t be with us now. An irony.”

Raffi scoffed. Her attention flitted back to Seven’s biobed. “Some irony,” she stopped and took a breath, brushing her fingers against the glass near Seven’s hand. She seemed strangely fragile and still, save for the slow rise and fall of her chest. “Thank you doctor.”

The EMH ducked his head. He made that rocking motion on the balls of his feet that made Raffi think of Cris. 

“You’re welcome,” said Emil. “I’ve done all that is possible. Seven of Nine will do the rest. She should heal quickly now that her Borg systems are working again. She’s a remarkable woman,” he smiled at Raffi, his eyes were warm and reassuring, “I expect a full recovery.” His hologram flickered, as though he was preparing to go elsewhere. He changed his mind and his matrix solidified. He said, “I suppose you’ll want to sit with her for a while?” at Raffi’s nod, he smiled once more. “I’ll fetch you something to sit on. Stay there.”

*

The tall-legged chair that the EMH brought her was a cradle at Raffi’s back. Its seat was level with Seven’s biobed, allowing Raffi to sit close and watch her friend’s beloved face. The stabiliser twittered, tracking Seven’s progress as it chattered to itself. Raffi uncurled her fingers from the ball she’d been holding them in, then bit her lip as she gently placed her palm against the stabiliser’s glass, laying her fingers flat where it arched over Seven’s heart. 

She watched the machine working, watched Seven sleep, her body broken, but getting better.

“Hey Seven,” said Raffi, recalling that Emil said that she would hear. She paused a heartbeat, at a loss for what to say. The first thing she came up with was an understatement, “I’m glad you’re back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Regionalpancake for troubleshooting! Eyyyy.


	8. Beginning and Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end part 1 (it started to get too long)  
> Please note the new rating - this chapter contains Smut Lite. If sexy times are not your thing, please skip to chapter 9 :)

**1 month later**

Seven’s hand was firm in hers as Raffi followed her off La Sirena and onto the busy docking port. Seven had their duffel bag on her shoulder and a spring in her step that was endearing, perhaps because it was so unexpected on the Ex-Borg. Raffi tugged on Seven’s hand as they moved away from the landing platform, weaving around a tour group whose patrons were eyeing a kebab of vat-grown animal, barbecuing as it turned with ponderous gravitas. They were just another pair of happy people stepping onto the station for some shore leave, or picking up supplies, going to work, killing time.

Seven laughed as she was halted. It was a small, brief exclamation. It started at the top of her chest and pounced out on a breath framed by her teeth. She looked enquiringly at Raffi, who blushed and glanced down at their twined fingers and pressed-together palms. A rosy heat started colouring her cheeks. She looked into Seven’s eyes again, and struggled not to grow distracted. It was a challenge, struggling with her attention so pleasantly focused on generally just _being alive._

Seven smirked and darted forwards, pressing her lips to the curve of Raffi’s cheekbone, just beneath her eye. Then she raised her eyebrow, her free hand tugging at the strap of their duffel bag where it hung across her shoulder.

“What?”

Raffi grinned and shuffled close, the movement shaking off the rush of awkwardness and embarrassment. Their fingers were still tangled loosely, a gentle touch that held them close together.

“First shore leave in _who_ knows how long,” Raffi said, “I guess I’m just excited to be here. And that you’re here too.” She rested her forehead briefly on Seven’s, before lifting her face again. “I think we’ve both been through a hell of a time.”

Seven’s lips touched her cheek, warm and gentle, as the Ex-Borg nodded and agreed with her readily, “That’s very true.”

Raffi shuffled another half-step closer, making excuses that she was simply moving out of the way. They were standing in a thoroughfare, after all. It was simply good manners to let other people by. The crowd pushed on around them like a river over a stone. Raffi took the opportunity to rest her free hand on Seven’s hip just below the concave of her waist. Then she pulled Seven closer until their bodies stood almost flush. One tug to loosen their fingers, parting their hands. 

Raffi lifted her freed hand up to cradle the opposite side of Seven’s waist, a loose frame of affection that provoked a quiet smile. She beamed happily. 

“So where to first?”

Seven took the hint made by the light press of Raffi’s body. She tilted her face up towards Raffi’s and kissed her, nose barely brushing the warmth of Raffi’s cheek. Raffi swayed as Seven pulled back. 

“I thought we could drop our bag off at our hotel, freshen up a little. They have a bathtub there,” the Ex-Borg noted. “I looked them up.” Seven stepped away from Raffi, then reached down to recapture her hand. She started walking, leading their way through the spacedock and leaning close so that Raffi could hear. 

“After that I thought we might look around at what the station has to offer. And then,” she shrugged, the motion easy and carefree, “well, I don’t know.” 

Raffi grinned secretly at the thought of the bathtub. She’d known that it was there. An old girlfriend from the Academy had recommended it to her. She claimed that she’d visited with her husband, to reconnect after they’d farewelled their daughter, who’d set off on her adulthood adventure. It was all very romantic. ‘ _With a room like that, you can’t go wrong_ ’, her friend had said. So, when Rios mentioned they’d be visiting the station, Raffi had jumped at the opportunity to book the room herself. She looked forward to watching Seven discover it.

“Rios and the others asked if we wanted to join them for a drink later,” Raffi said. “We could meet up with them after we go exploring?”

Seven ducked her head, her body swaying next to Raffi’s as they walked.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

*

Seven’s expression of open-mouthed surprise was absolutely everything Raffi hoped for when they managed to find their hotel, check in, and open the door to their room. Raffi felt just as impressed as Seven looked, standing still as she observed it. The wide bed with its downy-soft cover and plump looking pillows, the pressed-bamboo floor with its pattern of tan whorls and notches. The understated, elegant furnishings with accents in copper or chrome. A small welcome basket of fruits that was resting on the table gave the bedroom a subtle summertime scent. And then, not quite beside the bed but close enough to it, the deep standalone bath that Raffi’s friend had raved about. It practically begged for Raffi to climb in, and then invite Seven to join her. Her old girlfriend had been right. This room was _definitely_ romantic. 

Pleased with her choices, Raffi grinned at Seven, who was still performing her wide-eyed survey in silence. She had to nudge the Ranger with her shoulder to get her attention.

“Not bad, huh. Do you like it?”

Seven shut her mouth and swallowed, then let out a sound that was somewhere between a heartfelt sigh and an enthusiastic groan. It travelled straight through the center of Raffi’s chest to settle in the pit of her belly, making her shiver and curl her toes. Seven dropped their duffel on the rack by their room’s closed door, near where she stood. Then she took a few steps towards the bath, which wasn’t all that far. The room had one shorter width, and another that was long. That was the one with the head of the bed set against it, then the tile of the floor for the bath near the bed. The Ex-Borg’s right hand swung down to caress one of the faucets as she looked back at Raffi, almost absentmindedly stroking the polished chrome. 

“Do I like it,” Seven said. Her hand left the tap, unconsciously rising to fondle the zipper of the softshell jumper at her throat. It was a clingy charcoal weave that covered her arms, hooking over her thumbs with a cuff that dipped below her wrists and warmed her hands. The zipper ran down the middle of her torso and climbed upwards to hug the fabric closed at her neck. She’d already pulled the tab open until it rested lazily over her chest. The collar gaped invitingly. The silver metal of the zipper caught the light as she breathed.

Raffi’s attention drifted downwards.

“We don’t _have_ to go exploring, do we?” Seven asked, probably sounding more hopeful than she intended. There was a pause followed up with an amused huff when she clocked Raffi’s eyeline, “-Raffi?”

Raffi shook herself, mentally snapping out of a fierce and sudden fantasy that involved minimal clothing and the liberal application of hot water and bath oils. The hotel had provided an alluring little collection of bottles on the vanity behind the tub. It was a _very_ good idea, Raffi was sure of it. The Ranger was pretty much already sold.

Seven of Nine watched her approach.

Raffi reached over and opened the tap, flicking the plug lever closed as hot water began to thunder on the porcelain. The blush returned as Raffi straightened, her fingers curling at the vee of material above Seven’s chest, light and simple, and stroked at the zip. Seven’s eyes tracked her fingers and then flicked upwards as Raffi took a breath to speak. The water growled behind them, the reverb brightening from its hollow rumble as it slowly filled the tub.

“You did say you were thinking of ‘freshening up’,” said Raffi, aware that what she – well, what _they_ had in mind was not at all Seven’s original intention. “If we’re quick, we’ll still have time.”

“To explore?” Seven smirked knowingly.

“Hmm,” Raffi conceded, noting the careful omission of what they would be exploring, specifically. Her eyes sparkled as the Ex-Borg’s fingers covered hers, closing around the zipper over Seven’s chest and pulling downwards. The garment slithered to the floor in a hush as Seven moved her face to capture Raffi’s earlobe between her teeth. That little manoeuvre never failed to make Raffi shiver. Applied at exactly the right moment, Seven’s mouth against the skin there could make Raffi lose her head, all coherent processes simply flying out the window. Seven’s breath was hot against her cheek as she laughed, feeling Raffi list sideways as her knees faltered in response to the gentle touch.

Seven’s hands went to her belt buckle, her fingers pushing down between the fabric of Raffi’s pants and the plush skin of her belly. 

“Take your clothes off,” Seven said imperiously, her nose delicately nuzzling the skin by Raffi’s ear. She smiled against Raffi’s neck as her chin lifted, asking for more contact without actually forming words. 

Raffi hummed as Seven acquiesced, lips hot against the pulse point at her throat, then followed up the movement by slipping her hand deeper down the front of Raffi’s pants and curling them over her underwear. Her fingertips smoothed firmly over cotton, but her motion was cramped by the vice of Raffi’s clothing. Raffi’s hands flew from where she’d rested them lightly over Seven’s hips to fumble with her belt buckle and unbutton her fly, scrambling to make Seven’s hand more room to let her start caressing her in earnest. She didn’t need to be told twice.

Seven teased her like that for another moment, almost, but not quite in direct contact with her, even after Raffi had managed to pry the buttons of her fly apart. It was good in a way that was all too frustrating, but perfect in its tease and the promise of things kept for later. Raffi wriggled forwards with her hips and sighed for more friction. But the wet heat between her thighs was beyond the reach of Seven’s fingers. She cupped her hand at Seven’s cheek and brought their mouths together for relief that she wasn’t getting elsewhere, relishing the way that Seven’s breath shook against her bottom lip as she caressed Raffi intently.

The burble of the bathtub started sounding full and pleasant as steam began to curl into the bedroom, reminding both women that the tub was there.

“Oh fuck, the tap!” Raffi said. 

“Oh, fuck the- what?” Seven’s confusion was absorbed in breathy laughter as Raffi stumbled, half-hobbled by her trousers, to the head of the bath where she closed off the tap. The water stopped, leaving the faint hiss of bubbles in its wake. The last of the turbulence settled and the gently steaming surface grew still and flat. 

Seven reached down and dipped the silver-capped fingers of her left hand into the bath, sending concentric ripples out in arcs across the once-smooth water. 

“How is it?” Raffi asked, observing with appreciative eyes as Seven shook the water from her fingers and started briskly taking off her clothes. Her movements were, as always, straightforward and efficient. 

The Ex-Borg’s mouth was half-curled in amusement as she caught Raffi watching. Seven lifted long, pale legs over the rim of the tub and bent downwards from her knees. Her hands curled soft around the edges of the bath as she lowered herself in. 

Seven sighed and stretched out in the water, reclining backwards until her entire body was submerged. Raffi watched her slipping under, the water enveloping her legs and chest. A goddess in reverse. Raffi’s mouth felt suddenly dry, and her skin burningly hot. Then she swallowed, as Seven sat upright again and splashed water over her face. Her chest and shoulders were pinked with heat, and her hair danced out like seaweed behind her where it dipped into the bath. She groped for one of the bottles of bath oil on the vanity, opened it, and tipped a few drops of scented oil into the bath. The earthy smell of sage and geranium leaves made Raffi think of home. Her little trailer parked out in the desert, snakeleaf vines and devil’s ivy reaching for the sun. True, she hadn’t always been happy there. The walls were filled with many old regrets. But it might be nice to show Seven her home on Earth one day, maybe later. Just something nice to think about. 

Seven placed the bottle back on the vanity and sunk back into the bath again. The water swirled and glistened over her skin. It high-lit every curve and plane that Raffi loved to touch, to run her lips over. Raffi was, after all, a very tactile person. She focused back on the present again. Her melancholy train of thought thrown quickly out the window. 

“It’s perfect,” Seven said. To which Raffi could only muster an incoherent whimper in reply. 

Then Seven turned her head towards her and lifted her eyebrow. Her smirk said that she knew the effect that she was having on Raffi, because of course she did. Inevitable. 

“I believe I asked you to remove your clothing,” Seven said, smug from her position in the bath, “yet you remain fully dressed.” She tilted her head reproachfully. Her lips suppressed her mirth, “Inefficient.” 

The part where she had been of zero help, blissfully helping Raffi lose her mind seemed to have conveniently escaped her. Raffi rolled her eyes and took the hint, protesting, “I loosened my pants for you,” as she shoved her clothing down her hips and pulled her sweater over her head. Her hair bounced wildly in its ponytail as it flipped free of the collar. Raffi shook it out, nearly naked as she kicked her legs out of her pants and then reached behind her back to catch the hook-and-eye fastenings of her bra. 

Now it was Seven’s turn to be distracted by the grace of Raffi’s bare legs and torso, even though the other woman’s struggle with her bra clasp was more awkward than seductive. Raffi preened, feeling the heat of Seven’s gaze as it travelled the contours of her shoulders and arms. Finally the damned clasp at her back came loose and she let her bra fall to the tiled floor with a muffled ‘ _tack_ ’. 

Raffi’s eyes sparkled with victory, gloriously naked as she stepped close to the edge of the bath. 

“There. Are you happy?” she said, as she tested the water with her fingers before clambering in. 

Seven licked her lips and made that hungry sound. She reached out for Raffi and pulled her into a tight embrace. The water swirled between them and then across the bent peaks of their legs. The waves pummelled at the edges of the bathtub, threatening to escape as Raffi laughed when Seven wrapped wet arms around her.

Seven hugged Raffi close, pressing Raffi’s back tight to her chest, then released her a little. She hooked her chin against the dip of Raffi’s shoulder, idly stroking the other woman’s stomach. The skin there was now gently curved with the trademarks of age and from drinking too much. Patterned also, with the faint stretches of a long-ago pregnancy and the other myriad little stresses of motherhood. Seven’s scars were harsher, a forced mix of her human self with Borg technology. Sometimes Raffi wondered if there were any species who had joined the Collective willingly. She’d almost lost Seven, a month ago, because of that. That had scared Raffi more than she could admit. It made her notice how much she’d miss Seven if something like that happened again. Galatea and its lost civilisation remained a mystery.

It was still relatively early in their relationship, and she wondered if that feeling of need and care for her would get stronger, or fade away. Would she be carried closer to, or stray away from this woman’s orbit? What did their future hold? It was unsettling, if impossible to tell. Right now, it didn’t matter. They each wore those souvenirs with dignity. Seven was here and healed and whole again, and was holding Raffi in her arms. 

Raffi hummed and turned her nose to Seven’s cheek, her dark eyes briefly closed. She kissed her there. 

“Exceedingly,” Seven smiled, arching her neck around to kiss Raffi properly.

Seven let her hold loosen and Raffi settled back into the bath, breathing in the perfumed steam as the water washed around her. The warmth soaked its way into her limbs, making them heavy. Her legs tangled with Seven’s at the shins, knees poking through the surface on occasion and tingling at the contrast of the cocooning heat and cooler air. Raffi let her arms just float and she relaxed against Seven’s chest, like a soft, comforting pillow at her back, her pale thighs cradling Raffi’s pelvis. Seven’s breath was calm and steady behind her, one hand idly stroking a path between Raffi’s breasts. The touch was lightly arousing, but mostly aimed to soothe. Reassuring. Familiar.

“Same,” Raffi said. 

*

They sat together for several minutes, drowsing in each other’s company, limbs heavy in the scented water. Seven’s hand drifted from its soothing path on Raffi’s chest and cupped the base of one of Raffi’s breasts. Her fingers traced the lower curve and cradled it, lifting so that it rose above the water’s surface, her cupped hand full. Seven’s thumb brushed over the nipple, sparking up Raffi’s nerves from their placid state. Seven’s left hand trailed down towards her hip and thigh. Raffi sighed in welcome at the slow, questioning touch, shrugging into her caresses as her knees parted unconsciously.

Seven spoke beside her ear, her hands still ghosting lightly. She slipped long fingers down the inner length of Raffi’s thigh.

“Do you want to-?”

Raffi reached behind her with one hand and cradled it along the back of Seven’s head. She felt the familiar ridges of cranial plating hidden beneath the Ex-Borg’s blonde hair. Raffi arched around and kissed her, holding Seven’s head in place with her curled palm as a gentle guide behind her ear. 

Raffi nodded with heat-drunk difficulty, clumsy and slow. Her breath stuttered at Seven’s lips as she took the Ex-Borg’s hand and showed her fingers where she wanted them. Raffi shut her eyes and Seven smiled against her lips. She kissed Raffi close-mouthed, once and then twice as their tangled fingers circled Raffi’s clitoris, then lower, easing briefly into her body and slipping out again, repeating. 

“That is a ‘yes’, I take it?” Seven murmured, sounding pleased with the way that Raffi gasped and blushed, squirming in her arms. She stroked the soft of Raffi’s breast again, smoothing water, letting her skin shiver at the contrast of warm and cold. She used the bath’s heat to her advantage. 

Raffi opened her eyes, caught Seven with a smile, “Yes. You know it is.” Seven twitched her fingers over her clitoris, applying gentle pressure between her forefinger and thumb, circling with her fingertip then smoothing her hand out flat. Broad then not. The blunt, smoothed edge of her thumbnail skimmed it lightly and Raffi bucked.

“Oh! Do that again.” 

Seven gentled the hand she had on Raffi’s breast down over Raffi’s stomach, urging the other woman to still her movements. 

“Hey, take care,” she said with some amusement as she granted Raffi’s request. Another heaving wave of water, “you’ll get the floor wet.”

“Towels. We have a lot of towels,” Raffi said distractedly, her attention was precariously divided amongst several delightful sensations. Seven repeated the movement a few more times. Raffi’s breathing quickened, her concentration unravelling but for that one thing that Seven was doing with her hand. _But damn, it was good._

Raffi wondered what she’d been talking about. _Oh yes, towels._ “The reception desk has more-” 

Seven’s hands went to her hips and tried to push her up. Raffi grunted in confusion, moving under Seven’s prompt without really knowing why. 

“Huh? What’s happening?”

“On your knees. Turn around and straddle my legs.” Seven said.

Raffi rose and turned, slipping against the edges of the bath as they untangled their limbs and tried to rearrange everything back into some sense of order. There was a brief mayhem of graceless limbs and water. Raffi was breathless by the time any vaguely comfortable level of organisation was achieved. Half-straddled awkwardly over Seven, on her knees inside the tub, Raffi braced her hands upon the edge behind Seven’s head and laughed, pressing her forehead against Seven’s shoulder. There was perhaps slightly less water inside their bath now than outside of it, too. The bath was generous, but maybe not _that_ big. The tiled portion of the bedroom had a decidedly puddled sheen. It was a good thing the room’s designer had installed a subtle drainage grid where the tiles met the wooden floor. 

Seven’s hands were wrapped around Raffi’s hips to steady her, occasionally kneading Raffi’s backside as she calmed and caught her breath. The Ex-Borg smirked as Raffi regained her composure, her soaked hair dripping onto Seven’s chest. Raffi eyed her, wondering what the other woman had planned next. 

Seven pulled Raffi’s head down, reaching up to meet Raffi’s lips with hers. “Kiss me,” Seven said, smiling, just before their mouths made contact, and Raffi abandoned her grip upon the edge of the bath to cradle Seven’s jaw and cheeks. Her hands slid down, thumbs smoothing over Seven’s collarbone as Seven spoke a soft and incoherent sound between their mouths. Her tongue flicked out to taste, darting back again as Raffi followed her. Then moved to close-mouthed kisses with the sweet drag and nibble of teeth and lips. 

Seven snuck her thigh between Raffi’s in silent offer as they continued kissing, and Raffi gratefully ground down. The slide of skin on heated skin was softened by the water, which lapped and whorled at Raffi’s back. Seven cursed and urged her on.

*

The sound of Cris’s voice, bright and tinny over someone’s communicator was the last thing that Raffi expected, nor something she wanted to hear as her body picked up speed on Seven’s thigh. She had one hand braced on the Ex-Borg’s bicep, the other on the edge of the bath behind Seven’s head. The friction was good, the angle not perfect, but just enough to make her nerves spark with pleasure as she moved. Her eyes were shut and she was breathing heavily. Seven was touching herself with her own fingers, murmuring encouragement, pressing her lips and tongue to whatever heated skin that she could contact. It was, Raffi thought, pretty damned hot.

The hail pulled Raffi unceremoniously out of the moment. The keen edge of pleasure that she’d been building suddenly dulled. She stilled her hips and dropped her head to Seven’s with a groan. Only now noticing how much their bath had cooled, and how bruised her knees felt. She shivered, as Seven kissed her collarbone in a daze, still far too aroused to snap out of it. 

Raffi answered the comm with her voice command.

“Raffi here. This had better be good Cris.”

The Captain sounded confused, his voice over the comms channel was backed by somewhere crowded and noisy, like a bar.

“Uh, yeah. Listen are you guys joining us or what? We’ve been waiting fifteen minutes. Elnor’s complaining that he’s hungry. - Kid wants more than pig chips.”

The mention of food and the background noises of the bar reminded Raffi that she and Seven both had somewhere else to be. She had no idea that their tryst had lasted for that long. Time really flew by when they were having fun. She touched Seven’s cheek apologetically as she climbed shakily out of the bath, her sore knees protesting at the change in orientation and pressure. 

She fumbled for a towel to put on the floor and soak up the water, and then dug around for another one each for her and Seven. 

“Fuck. Sorry Cris. We-” she paused in mid-shout towards the general direction of the communicator, dabbing the water off her body with her bath towel and at a loss for what to say. 

Seven flicked the plug lever to drain the water from the bath, which started making a very loud, very wet, and somewhat obscene gurgling sound. The others would definitely be able to hear it over the comm. She took the towel Raffi was handing her, and started drying herself off. Her expression combined annoyance with something more mischievous. Raffi winced in anticipation.

“We were having sex in the bath. You interrupted,” Seven said. She smirked when Raffi rolled her eyes and shrugged.

Cris responded with a strangled sort of squeak and then a coughing noise. The sound of pig chips being put down, then a beer bottle. Agnes cackling in the background at his mortification. Soji and Elnor wondering what had just happened. Raffi could only guess that Picard was also there. 

Raffi pinched Seven on the bottom as she passed to get her to behave, _not that it would,_ and went to their bag to find them some new clothes. She stopped by her discarded pants to fish out her communicator, holding it in her hand as she padded naked with their clothes in hand to dump them on the bed. 

Seven found a hair comb and started untangling her hair, smiling beatifically.

“We’ll be there soon babe,” Raffi said to him, squashing down her embarrassment as she returned Seven’s smile. 

“Raffi out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Audience beta testing and troubleshooting thanks to Jazzfic and Regionalpancake  
> (wonderfully proportionate and realistic (heh, realiSTICK) stickman in image by Spinifex, the terribly mediocre and amateurish photoedit is by regionalpancake, nob. <3 )
> 
> ****  
> 


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